


A Man Made of Regrets

by im_fairly_witty



Category: Coco (2017)
Genre: F/M, you are what you think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 03:34:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13966488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/im_fairly_witty/pseuds/im_fairly_witty
Summary: How does Hector actually /handle/ the fact that he was murdered by his supposed best friend?





	A Man Made of Regrets

Hector may look like he’s made of bones, but if you look closely, he’s really a man made of regrets. 

There are two-hundred and six bones in the adult human skeleton, and over the decades he’s named each one of them. 

Look at your right hand, there are four bones in your ring finger, the one closest to your palm is called a metacarpal. For Hector though, that is the promise he never kept to Imelda, that he would return home to grow old with her. Up one bone is the fact that he didn’t kiss her longer that last day he left. Up one more is that he hadn’t turned back to wave just one more time to Coco as he walked out the gate. And at the very tip is the regret that he didn’t stop to take a moment and breathe in the rich earthy smell of Santa Cecilia long enough to fix it in his memory.

In his feet are the regrets that he never got to dance with Coco at her quinceanera, at her wedding, or even at her request. His wrists are all the times he never got to lift his grandchildren in the air, his arms and legs small sweet favors he never got to do around the house, each vertebra of his spine is a bit of love unsung, unwhispered, unkissed, unheard. 

There’s twenty-four ribs in the human ribcage, twelve on each side. Those closest to his heart belong to his diosas, but there were some for his old childhood hermano. 

Third up on the right is his regret that he’d never been able to help Ernesto build the confidence he needed to write his own songs. Seventh down on the left is that they’d fought the night of his death, under that is the regret that Ernesto had to deal with the unexpected death of his own brother. 

Two-hundred and six bones in the human skeleton, and every one of them aching for nearly a century with the weight of unlived memories.

So when Hector first started to hear about how Ernesto moved on, forgot about him, stole his songs, let his memory die, he’s simply got no more room for regret. Instead, those Ernesto regrets become a distanced bitterness and he tries his best to move on. 

He’s no longer a part of Ernesto’s life (or death) and really, how much can Hector really blame him? Hector wouldn’t have wanted his old amigo to spend the rest of his life pining over an old childhood friend. If he thinks about it really hard he can even manage to feel a little happy that Ernesto managed to achieve the dreams that were so important to him in life. Even if it cuts Hector to the absolute core. 

But by now Hector’s used to being alone with his aging bones, and besides, letting go of his regrets for Ernesto frees up more room for regrets about his wife and child.

Years later, when Hector meets Miguel, he’s filled with the first hope he’s felt in decades, that perhaps he will be able to avoid his last crushing regret of never seeing Coco again, even in death. When he realizes Miguel is his grandson a small regret in his right wrist becomes just a bone again. When Imelda calls him the love of her life there’s seven separate regrets all over his body that become bones again.

When the painful icy flickering of the second death retreats shortly after sending Miguel back to the land of the living, Hector begins to realize for the first time just what kind of future might possibly be opening before him.

In the careful, difficult, but sweet months afterward, when he’s ever so slowly being pulled back into the Rivera family, his regrets begin to heal one by one. A hair-brained experiment with the twins here, an afternoon of soap operas with Victoria there, when he bakes bread with Rosita, or has “the talk” fifty years late with his son-in-law Julio.

And when she’s ready, there are so many patiently waited for healing moments with Imelda. Moments of apologies tightly whispered into her hair at at three in the morning, of quietly lounging with her on the couch in the evenings while reading together, of falling back into their spirited teasing, of  _ singing _ with her in the warm afternoon light in the workshop, of being able to wrap his arms around her waist and feel her hands lovingly placed on his ribs every morning.

The day that they greet Coco on the day she finally joins them in the land of the dead, and they do it together, that’s the first day that Hector is a man made entirely of bones. Bones with normal, stuffy sounding names you’d find in a medical book. Nothing else.

Of course he occasionally thinks of Ernesto, of the things he did, of how badly he was wronged, but it’s less and less often as time goes on. 

Hector has his family, and his future, and is spending every moment filling himself with every bit of love he can. There is no room for regret, or anger, or bitterness, or any of the other negative emotions he’d been left alone with for so long. 

No, Hector’s had enough regret, and so he forgives Ernesto the best he can. And then Hector forgets him.

After all, he has so many new memories to be making instead.


End file.
